OK, there's clearly confusion on several fronts with Downtime and Crafting. We've caused some of it (my bad on the multiplication thing), and some it is coming from questions turning us around (again, my bad). Other confusion is coming from questions not being asked consistently and/or initial assumptions getting in the way of how things are intended to work. So before I get back to specific questions, here's the intent - and after any errata and/or clarifications that are required, how it will
work...
- Downtime is intended to be a
simple and
fast way of letting you do things between periods of adventure. Each character makes no more than one roll, does only the scantest amount of basic math, generates a single result toward a single goal, and everyone gets back to the adventure.
- Crafting is intended to be a laborious, time-intensive activity that cannot be undertaken in increments smaller than one day, resulting in salable and/or potent items of the type you see on the gear tables. This is because anything less impressive isn't worth the trouble of using the Crafting system
and also to support the first point above: to keep Downtime simple and fast.
- Any period shorter than a day is simply too fiddly for Crafting checks. That way lies madness. Thus, we will be making any changes necessary (if any are indeed necessary) to prevent Crafting checks that actually take anything less than 1 full day of game time. (Remember this - it'll be important when we get back to Crafting Supremacy.)
- Some Downtime checks - unless I'm mistaken, all but Crafting, earning income, and fostering good will - are set up to happen in Downtime mainly because they need to happen outside the flow of regular adventuring. In some cases, like Treatment, we'll be looking at ways to exclude them from certain Downtime restrictions, or possibly making them non-Downtime checks that must still happen outside combat and certain other periods of play (e.g. Complex Tasks, times of stress or distraction, etc.).
- Non-Crafting Downtime checks that specifically take less than 1 full day are NOT an indication that Crafting checks (or, for that matter, any other Downtime check) should be allowed in less than 1 full day.
With all this in mind, and ignoring all that has been said so far (even by us), here's a rescript of Crafting Supremacy that hopefully clears things up...
Crafting SupremacyYour exhaustive knowledge lets you create complex masterpieces with incredible swiftness.
Requirement: Crafting Mastery
Benefit: Choose 1 of your Crafitng Mastery feats. When creating items of this type, you produce quadruple the normal silver value.
Also, the minimum Downtime required for items of this type decreases by 1 step, to a minimum of D (i.e. Y becomes M, M becomes W, and W becomes D). This does not impact the silver value generated.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times, choosing a different Crafting Mastery feat each time (e.g. Crafting Supremacy (Chemistry), Crafting Supremacy (Pottery), etc.).
Again, please ignore all previous explanations and interpretations. Let's see if this works on its own merits.
Now, Alex has done a great job following up on the examples, so I'll ignore those and get to individual questions (again, keeping the intent/goal in mind)...
You know, much as I hate to disagree with authors, it does indeed say on page 73 that you should multiply the monetary result of the check by the amount of downtime (i.e. 4 days, 5 weeks or 9 months) spent on the check.
Ah yes, my bad. Long, long ago, in the before-time, there was no multiplication. That was before we shifted the silver results so that the longest periods produced the most output (see Intent, above).
So if my group had the luxury to say have 2 months downtime after a righteous haul, then they could make a downtime check and either earn 2x month (check) silver (and apply their prudence to it), or they could spend that much silver towards making an item.
That sounds... logical?
In a vacuum, that's correct. The parity between Crafting output and income is intentional.
Can't you craft as your generate income skill? The two tables are exactly the same.... right? So you can either earn X amount of money as downtime or craft X value goods during downtime.
Yes, you can - just as you can generate income with any skill.
I think that you make one roll for the entire downtime period (say three weeks if you've got it), get the value per week/month/day, then multiply said value to get total amount accrued
This is correct. As I mention above, my previous statement that there was no multiplication was in error but I was right that you only make 1 Downtime roll. That's critical.
Which works out to the same thing? So if the crafter only has a Downtime of 1 week at a shot, he could make part of the sword (30s worth) set it aside then come back and finish it later in your next downtime?
Only if your GM allows banking (per the last paragraph of the Build or Improve Object description).
Otherwise, how do you know up front that you will only roll say the 21 in the example above, and get 30s per week or do you have to assume a worse case scenario and say ok, at my worst roll it means it will take me X weeks (9 weeks in the example I gave) and thus you cant make the sword unless you have a 9 week downtime?
Unless your GM allows banking, you have to declare the single item you want before you make the roll. In a game without banking, you will sometimes not generate enough silver to make a desired object, in which case that Downtime period is wasted (representing the trial and error crafters often experience, especially with objects at or above their competency).
You try and make the sword, and if it takes more time than you have you stop making it. Up to the GM whether or not you can save your progress if you didn't complete it.
If it takes less time, you make other stuff to sell for the difference in silver between your check and the cost for the sword.
At the GM’s discretion, the character may “bank” Value toward a particularly large or complex item but this significantly increases bookkeeping and is only recommended for advanced games.
So basically, if the GM says it's ok, you can spread a Crafting check out over separate downtime checks. Personally, as long as the PC owned the facility (i.e. holding with a workshop) he should be able to store half-made stuff there.
All this is intentionally left to the GM. I imagine lots of GMs won't allow banking or false starts - to avoid the bookkeeping, keep things simple, or to represent partial failure as described above.
I guess - my personal opinion is that mixing downtime into a matter of hours is needlessly fiddly (everytime the party stops for a rest, the crafter whips out his tongs, a half finished sword, starts a coke fire, and gets forging). I'm talking mechanics, here
This wouldn't normally happen as the smallest time increment on weapons is a Day. The only time this is even possible is if someone has invested 3 feats into crafting, and I don't really see a need to begrudge the guy who has invested that much into crafting from working on his project when he has a few spare hours.
We do. While certainly plausible, it'll bog play down to a crawl if someone focuses on Crafting and seizes every opportunity to make Downtime checks (which by their very nature demand the GM's attention and exclude everyone else at the table). That said...
The important thing to me is that Downtime is STILL declared by the GM, and I don't know many GMs who would consider breaking for lunch for an hour to be a downtime event, though if you set camp for the remainder of the day so you can continue into some area at first light, you may have several hours.
This is why we leave the option open. Each table's play pattern is going to be different but as a large number of groups feel the need to play only in the RAW (excuse the nasty pun) and many will in our opinion react poorly to core rules that exclude most of the party - especially if they're anything more than a trivial check - we set the baseline to not allow anything below a (D)ay.
We are looking how Improvisation works with Cooking in particular.
One instance of improvisation for you is in our group. Our Unborn is flavored out as a giant walking cast iron stove that has focused a large chunk of his skills and feats on cooking and the crafting skill.
He's got this lifetime goal of cooking legendary beasts and starting up his own awesome restaurant ala the movie The Freshmen.
Anyways, he's got crafting basics and the many armed feat so he could have extra cooking arms working inside his body as he does stuff, giving him almost constant 'downtime' for those hands while he adventures. With as crazy as he's been rolling I've been letting him whip up a meal for the party at least once a scene if he wants to and has the materials for it.
Since its basically still a cinematic game, there is little time in my campaign for the downtime regimen of eating and such so I let him cook on the go as needed and just make the check when he wants to pull it into play.
Now, this is a strange situation to be sure, but I'd say that would only work if they have some means of portable cookery materials available. Otherwise, I'd be making them set up camp fires, find a kitchen, etc which allows for some structured downtime and R&R.
He also took the Elemental Heritage (Fire) feat so he's got a constant supply of magical fire to cook by in his tummy, and he can heat up his arms and burn people if need be.
See, this is an awesome concept, and doesn't bother me mechanically because the character's investing in feats to make it happen, but I
still might not allow it in my game unless a) the player was quick enough on the draw to get the rolls done without interrupting the rest of the game, b) I had a strong enough rapport with the player to adjudicate the checks without interripting the rest of the game, c) everyone else was comfortable with the concept and execution, and d) the result didn't throw off anything in my setting and story.
And as a game designer I'd never allow that as a core option. It's not something I think most tables would abide well.
Hope that clears up the crafting issues. Do me a favor and respond only to this post and forward. Alex read it before I posted and so it's the most current response from Crafty Games. Thanks!
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